


Boys and Girls

by die-forellex (heatinfreezing)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alcoholism, American AU, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Masturbation, Modern AU, Religion, creepy drunk older men, shitty parents, the most generic title of all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 06:34:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14514591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heatinfreezing/pseuds/die-forellex
Summary: The girls make a show of trying to tan, the guys do tricks off the diving board...eventually one of the guys will get bored and try to make a splash big enough to hit the girls and piss them off.It’s an odd ritual that somehow seems natural, but Reiner can’t help but feel that he has no part in it. Even aside from not living here most of the year, it’s hard for him to wrap his mind around the point. He glances over at Historia, tries to will himself to stand in awe of her supposed beauty and just...nothing.





	Boys and Girls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kasch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kasch/gifts).



Even though Reiner was born here, even lived here until he was six, this place never fails to make him feel that he doesn’t belong.

It’s been like this for more than a decade. As per his parent’s custody agreement he’s to spend the academic year with his mother in Michigan and the summers with his father halfway across the country.

The summer heat is oppressive and heavy on his skin. It makes sense that everyone is at the pool as it’s the only respite from the record breaking high on this July day, though Reiner knows that everyone comes here even on milder days. The plastic chair is hot on his bare legs as he watches everyone mill about. The girls have divided themselves up into one corner, the guys the other.

One girl stands out. Historia Reiss lounges on her fancy monogrammed beach towel, her tiny pink bikini covering only what’s required. All the other girls seem to revolve around her, offering her sunscreen or trying to share a magazine as she puts on her oversized sunglasses. She acknowledges each of them, then lays back under the guise of tanning.

The other girls follow suit, laying down with magazines on their beach towels. They could all do this at home in their backyards, maybe even at Historia’s big house on the outskirts of town. He hears she even has a maid and a cook.

But there wouldn’t be boys to look at them in Historia’s backyard.

The girls make a show of trying to tan, the guys do tricks off the diving board...eventually one of the guys will get bored and try to make a splash big enough to hit the girls and piss them off.

It’s an odd ritual that somehow seems natural, but Reiner can’t help but feel that he has no part in it. Even aside from not living here most of the year, it’s hard for him to wrap his mind around the point. He glances over at Historia, tries to will himself to stand in awe of her supposed beauty and just...nothing.

It bothers him.

“Are you planning on, y’know, swimming?” Bertholdt looks at him expectantly.

“Yeah, just gimme a second.”

Bertholdt and he have been friends since they were kids. They’d probably be best friends if Reiner still lived here during the year. Reiner can’t help but feel a bit like an extra responsibility for Bertholdt, that he feels obligated to make sure he has someone to hang out with when he’s here for the summer.

Still, he appreciates it. It’s better than sitting at home all day, especially since he’s already finished his anual Harry Potter reread. Mother would have an aneurysm if she knew he was reading about witchcraft, but his dad couldn’t care less. So he keeps the books here at his father’s house so he at least has something to look forward to each summer. But with that out of the way, the pool is what he’s left with.

Reiner glances through the chainlink fence and to the bar across the street where his father is busy getting his mid afternoon buzz. Dad can’t drive after his last DUI, so Reiner is stuck playing chauffeur this summer. Still, it hasn’t been that long since Reiner dropped him off, so he should have a decent amount of time to swim before he has to drive him home.

He takes his shirt off, leaving him in just his swimsuit. He can practically see his skin turning pink as the sun reflects off the water.

Reiner stands up and follows Bertholdt to the deep end. He waits his turn and dives a few times off the diving board, just a front flip and a dive, nothing too much but still fun. The chlorine from the pool sticks to him but it’s worth the reprieve from the summer heat.

“Hey! Marcel, Galliard, over here!” Bertholdt hollers from the deep end.

Marcel waves at Bertholdt, and hesitates before he sees Reiner and waves as well, though a little less enthusiastically.

_Is that...Galliard?_

A year younger than Reiner, Marcel’s surly younger brother who’s insisted upon being called by his surname since he can remember walks on the wet cement toward the deep end. Unlike his older brother, he takes no time to say hi to the girls, rather he walks past them with the makings of a grin on his face before he very intentionally kicks the end of Annie’s towel so it lies askew. She glares at him, but Galliard just walks past toward the diving board.

Reiner can’t take his eyes off of him. He’s different. He had to have grown half a foot over the last year. He has a new haircut, his strawberry blonde hair cropped into something that looks neat but still too trendy to have been done on the army base in town.

Reiner looks at him, eyes greedily taking in  broad shoulders and thick arms. His pulse quickens, an uncomfortable feeling with a slight edge of good that makes him feel confused. Reiner remembers that Galliard had joined the wrestling team but he hadn’t known it’d been something he was good at.

Reiner imagines that Galliard is very good at wrestling.

_Stop that._

His stomach turns like he’s about to be sick.

Reiner watches as Galliard jumps off the diving board and into the pool, a graceless canon ball that makes a big splash, high enough that it douses Annie and gets water all over Pieck’s library book.

He watches as he steps out of the pool, skin slick with water and shining in the sunlight, and Reiner can’t look away.

“OI! Reiner!!”

Reiner looks over behind the chain link fence by the girls and sees his father, slumped over and rattling obnoxiously. His father keeps yelling for him. Reiner swears everyone is looking at him and he feels dizzy with the embarrassment of it all. He runs over to the fence, ignoring the lifeguard’s reprimand.

“Yeah dad, what’s up?”

Dad’s eyes are red and his breath smells of alcohol even from here. His cheeks are flushed, but there’s a red mark beneath his eye that looks like it’s starting to turn purple.

“Eh,” he slurs, “got into a bit of a fight. That asshole Franz had it coming, he deserved it, but I got kicked out,” Dad looks over at the girls, lets his eyes linger on them as they sit there in the sun in a way that makes even Reiner feel dirty and uncomfortable by proxy. Historia Reiss wraps herself in her towel and walks away.

“Creepy old man,” Annie murmurs as she does the same. The other girls follow suit, throwing their things haphazardly in the corner and decide they’ll swim instead of sunbathing.

“Do you need me to take you home?” Reiner asks, humiliation swelling in his chest.

Dad shakes his head and sighs, “Yeah, sounds good.”

Reiner pulls on his shirt and apologizes to Bertholdt for leaving so early.

“It’s okay, I’ll see you later, right? I’ll call you.”

Reiner nods hastily. He’s glad to leave, even if he’d rather his father not continually shame him so reliably by virtue of being the town drunk.

He can’t help but glance at Galliard before he leaves.

“Hoooboy,” Dad slurs at dinner. He’s halfway into his third can of Miller, which is usually whe he starts speaking his mind, “that Reiss girl, she’s a pretty little thing. Back in my day I would’ve had my head up her skirt like that,” he snaps his fingers.

* * *

 Reiner picks at his food, boxed Kraft macaroni and cheese with browned hamburger. Reiner doesn’t say anything, but Dad doesn’t really want him to anyways.

“Your mom used to be a real hottie, back before she found Jesus and all that. She’d go behind the bleachers with just about anyone and–”

“I really don’t want to hear it, Dad.”

He chuckles, as if he’s told some sort of hilarious joke, droplets of beer on his mustache.  His eyes are mirthful and glassed over as he happily recalls the past, the greatest years of his life already behind him at the age of forty-one.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, no one wants to hear about their Ma being the town slut,” Reiner flinches at the word but dad doesn’t notice, “isn’t that Reiss girl a cheerleader? Don’t cheerleaders like football players?” Dad raises his eyebrow and smiles suggestively.

Reiner shrugs. Sometimes he forgets over the summer that he even plays football, despite the fact that it’s all his dad wants to talk about.

“Maybe in movies.”

Reiner thinks that it’d be easier if he were in a movie. Maybe if he were a football player in a movie he’d notice cheerleaders more.

* * *

 That night Reiner lies awake in his bed. It’s a pullout couch in the living room that squeaks every time he moves which doesn’t do anything for his restlessness. The air conditioning unit hums angrily, barely doing anything to keep the room cool. Reiner thinks about turning on the television, but he’s sure that at this hour it’s just infomercials and reruns of Happy Days.

He can’t stop thinking about Galliard, about how the sun had shone on his skin, the cocky smile on his face, how his body had looked as he jumped into the water.

He’s getting hard just thinking about it, and Reiner closes his eyes. He tries to think of Historia, of her tiny pink bikini and her pretty blue eyes but it doesn’t work, doesn’t banish the image of the boy who seems to dislike everyone around him.

Reiner rolls onto his stomach and groans. He wants to touch himself, but he can’t shake the feeling that it’s bad. His mother told him repeatedly that it was an abominable thing to do, even before he’d learned what she was talking about. He can’t do it.

The bed squeaks as he bucks his hips into the bed, thinking about Galliard the whole while. He comes in what can’t be more than a minute and immediately he’s filled with shame.

Why won’t these thoughts leave him? He’s tried praying, he’s tried kissing girls...he’s taken a different one to homecoming every year, and nothing helps.

Reiner cleans himself off, tossing the paper towel into the wastebasket. He sighs and flips over onto his back, staring up at the water-stained ceiling tiles.

Maybe it’s normal. Maybe everyone has thoughts like this, but it doesn’t mean anything. It’s not like he hates girls or anything.

_That has to be it._

Besides, as long as he doesn’t act on it no one will be any the wiser.

He says a quick prayer, the same way he always has before bed as he closes his eyes. It’s more a thing of habit than anything, but somehow it makes him feel a little comfort.

As long as I don’t actually do anything it’s all okay.

As he drifts off to sleep, he hopes that he’s right.


End file.
